If you build them, will they come?

Healthcare Financial Management, Feb, 2006

The U.S. hospital industry is in the midst of its biggest building boom in half a century--a development expected to increase the use of high-tech medicine and add fuel to rising healthcare costs.

The hospital industry has spent nearly $100 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars in the past five years on new facilities, up 47 percent from the previous five-year period, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Spending was projected to reach a record $23.7 billion in 2005.

New hospitals don't mean more beds: Capacity fell to 808,000 beds in 2004,18,000 fewer in 2001.

--USA Today